Antalya was the perfect introduction to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. When morning arrived, dazzling colors danced in the sunlight under a sky of radiant blue. I could easily see why the city attracts so many tourists. In addition to its proximity to major archaeological sites, Antalya offers restaurants, cafés, shops of handicrafts, and bustling markets, as well as a stellar museum of antiquities.
The weather was ideal for wandering through the streets of Kaleiçi, Antalya’s picturesque old town, where our hotel was located. Everywhere I looked, I saw the blue glass “eye of Medusa” hanging on the sides of buildings and in windows and doorways. It is supposed to keep evil away and to bring good look. Although it’s just a superstition, I couldn’t resist buying several versions of ubiquitous apotropaic device. (vocabulary note: I just learned the word “apotropaic” in the art history course I’m auditing at George Mason University. An apotropaic device is an object designed to ward off evil.)
Antalya has a long history, going back to the time of the Hittites. It was first settled as a seaport and fishing village around 200BCE and became part of the Roman Empire in 77BCE. A reminder of the Romans is Hadrian’s Gate, a triumphal arch built not by Hadrian, but to honor the Roman Emperor who visited Antalya in the year 130CE. It stands just outside the old town.
At a small ethnographic museum right across from our hotel, I saw recreations of rooms in a typical Turkish home and displays of carpets, carved wooden furniture, musical instruments, clothing, jewelry, household objects, and more.
An interesting section of the museum was devoted to Turkey’s coffee culture. Coffee originally came from Abyssinia. It arrived in Ottoman Turkey Sultan Selim conquered Egypt in 1517. Coffee houses opened a few years later, during the reign of Sultan Süleyman. The process of preparing Turkish style coffee begins with a slow roasting of the beans over a coal fire. The coffee is brewed, along with water and the desired amount of sugar, in a special pot called a cezve, and is served with the grounds in a small cup.
A highlight of our time in Antalya was a tour of the Antalya Archeology Museum. Its collection includes objects from Neolithic through Byzantine times.
Of special note is its impressive collection of Roman sculptures and sarcophagi from the nearby ancient city of Perge.
The following day, we drove a short distance to the archaeological site of Perge where excavations, begun in 1946, are still going on. Perge was originally settled around 1500BCE by the Hittites. It later became an important Greek and Hellenistic city. The Romans arrived in 2nd century BCE and built a gymnasium, a theater, bath complexes, and an agora. Eventually, Perge became a Christian city where St. Paul preached his first sermon. The city was abandoned in the 7th century CE. Most of the ruins visible today, including two large bath complexes, date back to the reign of Roman emperor Septimus Severus (197-211CE).
Some of the oldest remaining structures at the site are the oval Hellenistic towers built of limestone blocks in the 3rd century BCE. They were part of the city’s defense system.
We explored the two columned-lined main streets that divided the city into four quadrants.
The stadium and the theater lie outside the city walls. The stadium dates back to the first century CE and could seat 12,000 people while the semi-circular Greco-Roman style theater is notable for the sculpted friezes that decorate the stage. Construction of the theater began in the late 2nd century CE.
While we were in Antalya, Ulaș brought us to one of his favorite restaurants. I decided to order iskender kebap, a Turkish dish that consists of sliced döner kebap meat (very thinly cut grilled lamb or chicken) topped with hot tomato sauce over pieces of pita bread, and generously slathered with melted special sheep's milk butter and yogurt. I washed down the rich and delicious dish with a glass of ayran, a popular Turkish beverage made of yogurt, water, and salt. The sour taste reminded me of kefir.
On our final evening in Antalya, our group dined at a lovely seafood restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean.
The following morning, we set off for Fethiye, where we would board a gület (a small yacht) for a 4-day cruise off the Turquoise Coast.
En route to Fethiye, we stopped in the small city of Demre (known as Myra in antiquity), where a vendor at an outdoor market was grilling camel sausages and persuaded us to try samples. I thought it tasted similar to pepperoni.
The main purpose of our stop in Demre was to visit the Church of St. Nicholas, a historic Eastern Roman basilica church dedicated to the 4th century Christian bishop of the ancient city of Myra.
The church was built in the 6th century over the burial place of the saint. In 1087, during the Crusades, Italian merchants broke open the saint’s sarcophagus and stole bones and relics, which they brought back to Bari, Italy. Surviving frescoes, made in the 12th century, depict scenes from the Bible and the life of St. Nicholas. Some frescoes also depict sailors, as Nicholas was their patron saint.
Over the centuries, a nearby river changed course and the church became filled with silt and was buried below ground level. It was renovated in the 19th century by the Russian tsar Nicholas I, and it was used as an Eastern Orthodox church until 1923, when it became a museum. (Note: that’s when the Greeks residing in Anatolia were required to leave by the population exchange between Greece and Turkey.) On the day we visited the church, most of the other visitors were Russian-speakers.
For lunch in Demre, we had a typical Turkish meal, including puffy bread, yogurt soup, salad, and a choice of several different kinds of kebaps. The one I selected had rounds of eggplant interspersed with well-seasoned meatballs. Lunch concluded with my new favorite dessert, knafeh (also spelled kunefe).
Then we were back on the road. Soon I was anticipating our next meal - dinner on board the gület - and four days exploring the Turquoise Coast.
